The Mind-Body Effect

The mind-body effect basically says that suggestions, desires, beliefs, expectations
and fears influence what people experience.

This psychogenic phenomena is all
about the global contributions suggestion, belief, desire, fear, and expectation
have upon your natural health and wellness.
In medicine, this phenomenon is usually called the placebo effect.

Highlights of The Mind-Body Effect:

The mind-body effect is usually called the placebo effect.

The mind-body effect works better on some health conditions than on others.

A person's long term beliefs and fears either positively or adversely affects
their health and wellness.

The mind-body effect is a special form of optimism.

The mind-body effect cannot work miracles against serious diseases
or injuries.

Expectation plays a key role in the mind-body effect.

The mind-body effect can also refer to the phenomenon where an ineffective
therapy can benefit a patient merely by the suggestion or belief that the therapy
is beneficial. Often this placebo effect is due to a person placing great faith
in the effectiveness of their physician or other health care professional,
such as a personal trainer. Or, it could merely be the result of the extra
attention that was given to them during the treatment process.

The mind-body effect is believed to make more of an impact upon some health
conditions than on others. It works best with psychogenic problems, like depression,
anxiety, headaches, asthma, moderate hypertension, fatigue and gastrointestinal
symptoms. It is also remarkably effective as a painkiller.[4] And, has some
influence on the immune system.[5], [6], [7] These are the very same types
of illnesses that people in the wellness movement are most concerned about.

A negative placebo effect is sometimes called a nocebo effect, in medicine.
If a patient is skeptical of an intervention, the explanation offered to them
for its effectiveness, or the credibility of the physician admininistering
the treatment then a perfectly effective treatment might prove to be ineffective
on a given patient due to a negative placebo effect. In worst case scenarios,
a nocebo phenomenon originating from the unfounded fear of the detrimental
effects attributed to a particular treatment might actually result in a patient
feeling like they are suffering from a negative side effect.

"While the placebo effect refers to health benefits produced by
a treatment that should have no effect, patients experiencing the nocebo
effect experience the opposite. They presume the worst, health-wise, and
that's just what they get."

"Far more esoteric factors may also shape both the placebo and nocebo
response. A Dutch study, for example, found that most people considered
red and orange pills to be stimulating, with blue and green-colored pills
more likely to have a depressant effect."[1]

The mind-body effect, however, is really more global than the placebo effect
of medicine. It basically hypothesizes that a person's long term beliefs and
fears might either positively or adversely affect their health and wellness.
Suggestions, desires, beliefs, expectations and fears may have biological consequences.

The most likely physical mechanism for the mode of action of the hypothesized
mind-body effect is the neuroplasticity of the brain and autonomic nervous
system. The autonomic nervous system interacts with the immunal and hormonal
systems of the human body. A preference for responding more with your sympathetic
nervous system than with your parasympathetic nervous system to stressful events
in your life is being hypothesized by the mind-body effect to create changes
in your brain and nervous system over your entire lifetime that conceivable
might impact upon your health and wellness, such as a chronic disposition towards
headaches.

The mind-body effect is really a special form of optimism. Dispositional optimists,
or people with positive outcome expectancies who are fully engaged in living
life, were found in a recent study to be about half as likely to die of cardiovascular
disease during a 15 year period as men who were more pessimistic by nature.[8]

Obviously, everybody will eventually die some day. Thus, the mind-body effect
cannot work miracles against serious diseases or injuries. So, there is a greater
potential for the mind-body effect to be adversely affecting your health and
wellness, than there is for you to be the recipient of a miraculous cure.

"Ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding: Women
who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times
as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn't hold such
fatalistic views."[1], [2]

The mind-body effect hypothesizes that it is entirely feasible that a person
fearful about all the negative press on the chronic use of aspirin use could
end up with psychosomatic stomach problems, as a result of their fears.

"Fifteen years ago, researchers at three medical centers undertook
a study of aspirin and another blood thinner in heart patients and came
up with an unexpected result that said little about the heart and much
about the brain. ... When researchers reviewed the data, they found a striking
result: Those warned about the gastrointestinal problems were almost three
times as likely to have the side effect. Though the evidence of actual
stomach damage such as ulcers was the same for all three groups, those
with the most information about the prospect of minor problems were the
most likely to experience the pain."[1]

Similarly, on a positive note, some people might be receiving a wellness benefit
from cardiovascular training merely due to the mind-body effect generated by
their expectations of success from favorable reporting in the news media.

Expectation plays a key role in the mind-body effect. Expect to be sick all
the time, and you just might end up being that way. Expect to be normally healthy
all the time, and you just might succeed.